Gym babies learn skills

Grace is 2 years old, and she knows the word “gym.” When her mom said that they were going to the “gym” tonight, her apple-shaped face brightened and she beamed. Once there, she went wild — she hung from a bar, rolled down a mat, crawled through an arch and screamed out of sheer joy.

Grace’s wonderland is The Little Gym at 1400 Forum Road. The franchise specializes in motor skill development and has 237 locations in the country and around the world. Columbia is one of six locations in Missouri.

Since opening its doors in January, The Little Gym has welcomed children ranging in age from four months to 12 years. It offers classes in karate, dance and various sports. Grace and her mother, Colleen Parsons, are enrolled in a parent-child class where they, along with 18 other parent-child pairs, fill the colorful gym with songs, claps, screams and laughter.

“Children think they are just playing,” said Jim Dalton, owner of The Little Gym in Columbia. “They are having so much fun they don’t even know they are learning.”

The Little Gym employs professional trainers to guide children and help them learn mind-body and physical coordination.

“She (Grace) can do somersaults now,” said Parsons. “Whenever we walk on the sidewalk, she’d be doing the balance beam walk.”

Dalton, formerly a sales and marketing professional with McGraw-Hill, moved to Columbia in 2005 and opened The Little Gym the following year. “Columbia is a very physically oriented community with a lot of runners and bikers,” Dalton said. “Parents want their children to have the same opportunity.”

Dalton’s decision was buttressed by the fact that his daughter, Sheila Robertson, is a gymnastics veteran of 10 years and loves children. She now teaches gymnastics to preschool, kindergarten and grade-school students at The Little Gym. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., The Little Gym International provides a professionally developed curriculum to Dalton as a part of the franchise benefit. The Columbia location enrolls several hundred children and parents in its 36 classes.

Matt Chegwidden, his wife, Anne, and their 2-and-half-year-old daughter, Stella, have been attending a parent-child class for almost a year.

“It’s nice to see how much she’s (Stella’s) enjoying it,” Chegwidden said while looking into the classroom where Anne and Stella walked in a circle with dozens of parents and children. “Her favorites are playing with the (soap) bubbles and getting a color stamp on her hands and feet after class.”

Another important aspect of the classes is the social factor. Children interact with others through group activities and learn how to accommodate each other during playtime.

Nicole Campione-Barr, assistant professor in the department of psychological sciences at MU, believes in the importance of early childhood development. “The social development aspect is helping kids learn how to take turns, compromise and relate to each other in a physical and nonaggressive way,” Campione-Barr said.

Robertson, lead instructor for parent-child classes, emphasizes the program’s developmental benefits of helping children to develop hand-eye coordination, directional concepts, balance and coordination.

For Grace, the 45-minute class ended too soon. She wailed and kicked her feet while her mother tried to put her shoes on.

“It’s ok,” Colleen said. “We will come back next week.”